Axcliffe

Axcliffe is a United Kingdom royal crown colony located off the coast of Delesa in Atlantian Oceania. The colony occupies two islands and is home to important overseas bases for the United Kingdom’s Royal Armed Services: the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and Royal Army all operating facilities on the islands. The current population is 6,752,941 and the colony occupies an area of 1,323 km2.

History

The colony consists of two islands, Axcliffe and Cardon, largely uninhabited at the time of settlement by the Commonwealth of Azazia in 1954. At the time, the Commonwealth had allied itself with the Commonwealth of Delesa, fighting a bloody war that required the Azazian Royal Navy to dispatch a battle squadron that in turn required secure bases of operation and thus was born the settlements of Axcliffe and Invercardon.

By the end of the Commonwealth-Kreatvye War in 1978 the Royal Navy had constructed two well-equipped naval stations; Axcliffe primarily for littoral craft as well as Royal Marine barracks and Fleet Air Arm assets while Invercardon utilised its deep, but small, harbour for the larger warships of the Royal Navy.

At the end of the war, the Commonwealth of Delesa leased the two islands of Axcliffe and Cardon to the Commonwealth of Azazia in perpetuity under the condition that the Commonwealth would continue to provide support should the sovereignty and independence of Delesa come into question.

Economy

In large part, the economy of Axcliffe depends upon the service sector with secondary importance belonging to a small manufacturing industry and a financial centre—all benefiting from their unique advantage of adhering to Oceanian law in the midst of Atlantian Oceania.

Another critical component of the Axcliffe economy are shipbuilding and naval maintenance. The two Royal Navy bases serve as maintenance facilities for Royal Navy warships while private dockyards construct small merchant vessels, among the private companies Vickers Shipbuilding and Nautical Engineering simultaneously builds littoral warships for the colony’s defence.

Demographics

Approximately 72% of the population of Axcliffe is of Delesaian descent with much of the remainder comprising immigrants (or descendents of immigrants) from Oceania. Several thousand foreigners work in the colony, especially in the manufacturing sector and domestic helpers. Many of the foreign workers are of Delesaian descent, although others do come from various nations in Atlantian Oceania.

Culture

Broadly speaking, the culture of Axcliffe is an amalgamation from Delesian and Oceanian sources. Sporting events have taken a central place in the public life of the colony—a feature Axcliffe owes to its many Delesian immigrants. Similar to Delesa, the colony has a deep passion for football, although Oceanian staples such as rugby, cricket, and sailing have seen an increase in broad popularity in the past few years.

Outside of sports, literature and the visual arts reflect the bilingual nature of Delesa, where English and French are official languages. Stylistically, however, the products of the Axcliffe artists resembles more Oceania than Delesa. Additionally, the city of Invercardon boasts a small publishing industry that allows Oceanians and their regional neighbours access to Oceanian literature.

Transport

As an island territory, the most important transport links between the cities of Axcliffe and Invercardon are ferries and air travel. Both Axcliffe and Invercardon feature extensive port facilities that allow for thousands of visitors and travelers to move between Delesa and the colony on a daily basis. Axcliffe, home to Royal Air Field Axcliffe, is home to the colony’s international airfield, Callow Field, which operates flights daily to numerous locations including Philadelphia, Imperium, St. Myhre, Portsmouth, and Port Hustlings.

Within the colony, each island manages with a highly-developed road and light-rail network. Of note, like the remainder of the United Kingdom, traffic on the islands drives on the left. However, the high-density of the colony and its emphasis on vertical construction has pushed most individuals to utilise the extensive bus network and the light-rail network that, for most of the trackage, runs underground as a subway.

Communications

As an outpost of the United Kingdom, the colony received a digital exchange in 2004 that operates in parallel to the colony’s microwave radio relay, fibre optic trunk, and terrestial satellite relay. Additionally, the colony has seen the leading Oceanian telecommunications firm, AzJur, build mobile stations for the growing use of mobile phones in the colony.

Military

Owing to the mutual defence treaty between the United Kingdom and Delesa, the United Kingdom maintains an unusually high state of defence readiness for the colony while stationing a similarly unusually large number of armed service personnel on the islands.

The Royal Navy maintains the largest presence in the colony, operating two naval bases, HMNB Invercardon and HMNB Axcliffe, where larger warships berth at HMNB Invercardon with its deeper harbour and smaller littoral and patrol warships berthing at HMNB Axcliffe. The naval base in Axcliffe also features an airfield for use by the Fleet Air Arm. Currently the Royal Navy stations three cruisers, six frigates, six corvettes, eighteen destroyers, and twenty-two sloops with a squadron of patrol aircraft and resuce helicopters at the two facilities. The Admiralty refuses to confirm the number of submarines operating out of the facilities, but most officials believe at most four operate out of the naval bases.

The Royal Air Force maintains three squadrons at RAF Axcliffe, one featuring interceptor aircraft, the second multi-role fighters and the third support and surveillance aircraft.

The Royal Army has garrisoned the colony since 1954 with the Queen’s Axcliffe Lancers, an armoured reconnaissance formation based in Axcliffe. According to Ministry of Defence policies made public, the role of the regiment is as a tripwire to delay any force invading Delesa until reinforcements can arrive from the United Kingdom. Since the unit’s formation in 1954, the colonel-in-chief has been the reigning monarch of Delesa, currently HM King Edward III.